Bernhard Schlink, legendary playwright and screenwriter David Hare's film adaptation of The Reader comes complete with an introduction by the author and is published to coincide with The Weinstein Company's upcoming release starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.In 1958, 15-year-old Michael Berg becomes ill on the streets of Blumenstrasse, Germany, and 36-year-old tram conductor Hanna Schmitz, a complete stranger, helps him home. After months of battling scarlet fever, Michael visits Hannah to thank her when he catches her undressing. Instantly he is attracted. Overwhelmed by an obsession, he returns for another visit, where she asks for help carrying coal up to her apartment. He becomes dirty doing so, and she bathes him; after which they are drawn in to a passionate, secretive affair. As their physical relationship deepens, Hanna has him read aloud to her, chiefly from the great works of Western literature. While Hannah remains distant from Michael emotionally, he soon becomes enamored. Suddenly, Hanna disappears without a goodbye. Eight years later, as a student in law school, Michael attends a war crimes trial for a group of middle-aged women who had served as guards at Auschwitz. To Michael's surprise, Hanna is one of the defendants. Conflicted for having loved a felon but intrigued by Hanna's compliance to accept sole responsibility for the offense, Michael soon learns Hanna is protecting what is to her a far more terrible secret than a Nazi past...The Reader is a haunting story about truth and reconciliation, and about a generation that must come to terms with the crimes of another.

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